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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pie

A baked pie filled with mashed sweet potatoes, milk, eggs, vanilla, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. Mix the hot mashed sweet potatoes with the milk.

  2. Beat the eggs separately, then combine them.

  3. Add the vanilla, sugar, and melted butter to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling into a pie crust and bake until set.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sweet potato + vanillatop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and natural sweetness of the filling.
Milk
Adds liquid and creaminess, keeping the filling smooth and moist.
Eggs
Coagulate as they heat, setting the filling into a sliceable custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the texture of the set filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins firm as they heat, so the filling sets. Overbaking tightens the proteins too far, which can make the custard grainy, weepy or cracked.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, vanilla, sugar, butter):

  1. Sweet potatothe original
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, vanilla, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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